wayfinder

## Introduction Laravel Wayfinder bridges your Laravel backend and TypeScript frontend with zero friction. It automatically generates fully-typed, importable TypeScript functions for your controllers and routes — so you can call your Laravel endpoints directly in your client code just like any other function. No more hardcoding URLs, guessing route parameters, or syncing backend changes manually. > [!IMPORTANT] > Wayfinder is currently in Beta, the API is subject to change prior to the v1.0.0 release. All notable changes will be documented in the [changelog](./CHANGELOG.md). > [!NOTE] > Want to try the next version of Wayfinder? [You can find the beta here](https://github.com/laravel/wayfinder/tree/next). ## Installation To get started, install Wayfinder via the Composer package manager: ``` composer require laravel/wayfinder ``` Next, install the [Wayfinder Vite plugin](https://github.com/laravel/vite-plugin-wayfinder) to ensure that your routes are generated during Vite's build step and also whenever your files change while running the Vite's dev server. First, install the plugin via NPM: ``` npm i -D @laravel/vite-plugin-wayfinder ``` Then, update your application's `vite.config.js` file to watch for changes to your application's routes and controllers: ```ts import { wayfinder } from "@laravel/vite-plugin-wayfinder"; export default defineConfig({ plugins: [ wayfinder(), // ... ], }); ``` You can read about all of the plugin's configuration options in the [documentation](https://github.com/laravel/vite-plugin-wayfinder). ## Generating TypeScript Definitions The `wayfinder:generate` command can be used to generate TypeScript definitions for your routes and controller methods: ``` php artisan wayfinder:generate ``` By default, Wayfinder generates files in three directories (`wayfinder`, `actions`, and `routes`) within `resources/js`, but you can configure the base path: ``` php artisan wayfinder:generate --path=resources/js/wayfinder ``` The `--skip-actions` and `--skip-routes` options may be used to skip TypeScript definition generation for controller methods or routes, respectively: ``` php artisan wayfinder:generate --skip-actions php artisan wayfinder:generate --skip-routes ``` You can safely `.gitignore` the `wayfinder`, `actions`, and `routes` directories as they are completely re-generated on every build. ### Deploying Wayfinder reads routes from the registered router, so if Laravel boots with a cached route table left over from a previous release, generation will run against those stale routes. Any routes added since the last `route:cache` will be silently missing from the generated `routes/` and `actions/` directories, and Vite will fail with errors like `Could not load resources/js/routes/`. If your deploy script runs `php artisan optimize` (or `route:cache` directly) at the end of a deploy, run `php artisan route:clear` before regenerating on the next deploy. With the Vite plugin, this needs to happen before `npm run build`, since the plugin invokes `wayfinder:generate` during the build: ```shell php artisan route:clear npm run build ``` ## Usage Wayfinder functions return an object that contains the resolved URL and default HTTP method: ```ts import { show } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; show(1); // { url: "/posts/1", method: "get" } ``` If you just need the URL, or would like to choose a method from the HTTP methods defined on the server, you can invoke additional methods on the Wayfinder generated function: ```ts import { show } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; show.url(1); // "/posts/1" show.head(1); // { url: "/posts/1", method: "head" } ``` Wayfinder functions accept a variety of shapes for their arguments: ```ts import { show, update } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; // Single parameter action... show(1); show({ id: 1 }); // Multiple parameter action... update([1, 2]); update({ post: 1, author: 2 }); update({ post: { id: 1 }, author: { id: 2 } }); ``` > [!NOTE] > If you are using a JavaScript [reserved word](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Lexical_grammar#reserved_words) such as `delete` or `import`, as a method in your controller, Wayfinder will rename it to `[method name]Method` (`deleteMethod`, `importMethod`) when generating its functions. This is because these words are not allowed as variable declarations in JavaScript. If you've specified a key for the parameter binding, Wayfinder will detect this and allow you to pass the value in as a property on an object: ```ts import { show } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; // Route is /posts/{post:slug}... show("my-new-post"); show({ slug: "my-new-post" }); ``` ### Invokable Controllers If your controller is an invokable controller, you may simply invoke the imported Wayfinder function directly: ```ts import StorePostController from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/StorePostController"; StorePostController(); ``` ### Importing Controllers You may also import the Wayfinder generated controller definition and invoke its individual methods on the imported object: ```ts import PostController from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; PostController.show(1); ``` > [!NOTE] > In the example above, importing the entire controller prevents the `PostController` from being tree-shaken, so all `PostController` actions will be included in your final bundle. ### Importing Named Routes Wayfinder can also generate methods for your application's named routes as well: ```ts import { show } from "@/routes/post"; // Named route is `post.show`... show(1); // { url: "/posts/1", method: "get" } ``` ### Multiple Routes To The Same Action If two or more routes point at the same controller method, Wayfinder can't tell which URL you meant from the action alone, so the generated export becomes a dictionary keyed by URI instead of a callable: ```php Route::get('clients/{client}/payments', [ClientPaymentsController::class, 'index']) ->name('clients.payments.index'); Route::get('clients/{client}/payments-archive', [ClientPaymentsController::class, 'index']) ->name('clients.payments.archive'); ``` ```ts import { index } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/ClientPaymentsController"; // `index` is not callable directly — pick the URI you want: index["/clients/{client}/payments"]({ client: 1 }); ``` If two of those routes share a URI and differ only by verb, each key is prefixed with the verb, so you can still pick the one you want: ```php Route::get('/exports/{report}', ExportController::class) ->name('exports.show'); Route::post('/exports/{report}', ExportController::class) ->middleware('throttle:5,1') ->name('exports.run'); ``` ```ts import ExportController from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/ExportController"; ExportController["get /exports/{report}"]({ report: 1 }); ExportController["post /exports/{report}"]({ report: 1 }); ``` A route that answers to more than one verb joins them with `|`, as in `ExportController["put|patch /exports/{report}"]`. Exports whose URIs are already unique keep the plain URI keys shown above. In most cases it is easier to import the route by name from your generated `routes/` directory instead: ```ts import { index } from "@/routes/clients/payments"; index({ client: 1 }); // { url: "/clients/1/payments", method: "get" } ``` ### Conventional Forms If your application uses conventional HTML form submissions, Wayfinder can help you out there as well. First, opt into form variants when generating your TypeScript definitions: ```shell php artisan wayfinder:generate --with-form ``` Then, you can use the `.form` variant to generate `` object attributes automatically: ```tsx import { store, update } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; const Page = () => ( {/* */} {/* ... */} ); const Page = () => ( {/* */} {/* ... */} ); ``` If your form action supports multiple methods and would like to specify a method, you can invoke additional methods on the `form`: ```tsx import { store, update } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; const Page = () => ( {/* */} {/* ... */} ); ``` ## Query Parameters All Wayfinder methods accept an optional, final `options` argument to which you may pass a `query` object. This object can be used to append query parameters onto the resulting URL: ```ts import { show } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; const options = { query: { page: 1, sort_by: "name", }, }; show(1, options); // { url: "/posts/1?page=1&sort_by=name", method: "get" } show.get(1, options); // { url: "/posts/1?page=1&sort_by=name", method: "get" } show.url(1, options); // "/posts/1?page=1&sort_by=name" show.form.head(1, options); // { action: "/posts/1?page=1&sort_by=name&_method=HEAD", method: "get" } ``` You can also merge with the URL's existing parameters by passing a `mergeQuery` object instead: ```ts import { show } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; // window.location.search = "?page=1&sort_by=category&q=shirt" const options = { mergeQuery: { page: 2, sort_by: "name", }, }; show.url(1, options); // "/posts/1?page=2&sort_by=name&q=shirt" ``` If you would like to remove a parameter from the resulting URL, define the value as `null` or `undefined`: ```ts import { show } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; // window.location.search = "?page=1&sort_by=category&q=shirt" const options = { mergeQuery: { page: 2, sort_by: null, }, }; show.url(1, options); // "/posts/1?page=2&q=shirt" ``` ## Wayfinder and Inertia When using [Inertia](https://inertiajs.com), you can pass the result of a Wayfinder method directly to the `submit` method of `useForm`, it will automatically resolve the correct URL and method: [https://inertiajs.com/forms#wayfinder](https://inertiajs.com/forms#wayfinder) ```ts import { useForm } from "@inertiajs/react"; import { store } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; const form = useForm({ name: "My Big Post", }); form.submit(store()); // Will POST to `/posts`... ``` You may also use Wayfinder in conjunction with Inertia's `Link` component: [https://inertiajs.com/links#wayfinder](https://inertiajs.com/links#wayfinder) ```tsx import { Link } from "@inertiajs/react"; import { show } from "@/actions/App/Http/Controllers/PostController"; const Nav = () => Show me the first post; ``` ## Contributing Thank you for considering contributing to Wayfinder! You can read the contribution guide [here](.github/CONTRIBUTING.md). ## Code of Conduct In order to ensure that the Laravel community is welcoming to all, please review and abide by the [Code of Conduct](https://laravel.com/docs/contributions#code-of-conduct). ## Security Vulnerabilities Please review [our security policy](https://github.com/laravel/wayfinder/security/policy) on how to report security vulnerabilities. ## License Wayfinder is open-sourced software licensed under the [MIT license](LICENSE.md).